The story of my Vespa GT200.

Main menu

Category Archives: Parts

My new Euro Tail Light arrived! I bought it from ScooterWest.com, along with some other items that I’d been thinking of but waiting to combine on shipping. (Being Canadian has a few downsides, at least online shopping-wise.)

Why replace the regular tail light you may ask? Well, a coworker told me she had been behind me on the highway for most of my journey home and that I was hard to see unless I braked. Given that I brake sparsely as the scoot slows down much faster than a car when you ease off the throttle, this was not good safety news. My scoot has a suped-up after market headlight already that the previous owner installed already so improving an anemic tail light situation seemed logical. Though if it were something I ever got to look at it would likely have happened 2 years ago…

My first thought was that I might replace all the bulbs with LEDs. The next move was to find the Euro tail light part online. It has 9 bulbs in all compared to the 3 in the original light.

Check it out:

The Euro tail light works sort of opposite to the regular one. The regular tail light has two tiny bulbs that are the running lights and one larger bulb that is the brake light; the Euro tail light has one large bulb as the running light and 8 tiny bulbs that add to the blaze as the brake light. Basically, the running light brightness on the Euro is equal to the brightness of the brake light on the regular tail light.

(I didn’t at all take photos of this comparison in the dark in my shed by using my iPhone’s reverse camera and artfully pulling the brake lever with my foot while stretching out my arm as far back as possible toward the back of the scoot. Nope.)

It was VERY easy. The body piece with the red reflector on it has two small screws on the underside that you undo. That frees up that piece to come off and reveal the two bigger screws for the tail light. The reflector piece is wired in due to the little white light that should be above the license plate holder (ahem!). I let this dangle for a bit then just unclipped it.

Unclip the old tail light with its little white electrical socket which is conveniently designed so you cannot put it in wrong, then you clip in the same piece in the new light. There is a holder clip for the rectangular white socket to keep your wires in the tail light and not hanging all over the place. Then the screws go back in, followed by the little reflector body part. I took the opportunity to unscrew and straighten a partially crushed body piece from my little morning accident earlier this year.

Gorgeous, yes? I was worried I wouldn’t like the white around the red centre but I do. A shame I don’t get to look at it more often since I’m on top of the thing.

I am not much for mornings. A few weeks ago I backed out of the shed in a too-vigorous arc and made contact with the neighbours’ rock retaining wall. I heard the snapping sound and got off the scoot to see this:

That license plate… I sort of needed that attached. I managed to zap strap the plate under the luggage rack so I was street legal and could commute still. I collected up the pieces of the mudguard/license plate holder and put them somewhere with the thought that I might have to glue them back together again in some fashion.

I began a search for a new part, which has not been all that successful. It would help if there was some sort of standardized terminology being used. Rear mudguard, rear mud flap, rear fender, license plate something something…

There were two exact parts on eBay, but in white or grey. Grey would be OK maybe, but only if gluing didn’t work. They don’t seem to have the part in stock for my GT200, which is getting on in years for parts I suppose (as it is from 2007 or 2008). Off to Modern Vespa to ask as I didn’t find anything about it there in the forums already.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I am required by law to have an illuminated license plate on my vehicle.